bulk food storage

How to Use Mylar Bags for Bulk Food Storage

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How to Use Mylar Bags for Bulk Food Storage

 

How to Use Mylar Bags for Bulk Food Storage
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There are many reasons to store bulk food.  Bulk food is cheaper, and when you buy in bulk you insulate yourself from rising food costs.  Bulk food storage is the backbone of long term emergency preparedness.

Anyone who has seen images of Haiti, or Katrina, or Tsunami survivors knows that our infrastructure is fragile.  Even with the best efforts of government it takes time to get the wheels of commerce rolling again.

For this project I stored Hard Red Wheat, Cane Sugar, Brown Sugar, Rice, and Pinto beans.  This was stored in free recycled buckets from local bakeries and packaged in Mylar bags.

I used smaller gallon bags and put different commodities in each bucket to diversify my risk.  If also helps if I want to provide charity, because I can give a single bucket at a time that contains multiple food items rather than a 5 gallon bucket of wheat berries.

Bulk food storage using mylar bags is pretty simple.  All you need to do is:

  • Select the size of bag (1 or 5 gallon bags are most common) the thickness of the bag (I like bags that are between 4-7 mils in thickness).
  • Fill with your selected food
  • Add an oxygen absorber if needed (Sugar and Salt do not need O2 absorbers, and turn into bricks if used with one)
  • Press shut and seal with an iron on medium heat.

The video below will walk you through the steps – but it is really pretty simple to do and should not be a problem for even a new prepper.

Simple Recipes Using Food Storage

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Book Review: Simple Recipes Using Food Storage
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Simple Recipes Using Food Storage gives you a doable plan to help you prepare.  For many of us, storing the food is much simpler than finding recipes that use them.

My family uses the LDS principles of bulk food storage, and if you don’t use them on a regular basis it can be hard to make meals from wheat berries and powdered milk.

Whether emergency strikes, your family falls on lean times, or you just need to rotate your food storage, you can use these recipes to make everything from breads and desserts to smoothies and soups.

Having recipes that are easy and taste good – while using your food storage goes a long way to helping you use what you store.  This alone makes the book Simple Recipes Using Food Storage a worthwhile purchase.

If you store food, you should get some cookbooks so you can follow the wisdom of eating what you store, and storing what you eat.

This small cookbook is a good start on that wisdom.  I know that in my home, we are very busy during the week (who isn’t) and having simple recipes makes the difference between cooking and eating out.

Making Wheat Berry Pancakes in a Blender

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Making Wheat Berry Pancakes in a Blender

 

Wheat Berry Blender Pancakes
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Of all the food storage recipes I make, wheat berry blender pancakes is my wife’s favorite.  Its also a winner on a weekend morning, because its easy, cheap, and gets me points for when I plan on spending the day on a project that Genny doesn’t want to help me with…

If you really want a healthy treat, use buttermilk and let the wheat berries soak in it overnight.  The acid in the milk helps break up the wheat making it more digestible (it also makes it taste better).

This is a very healthy recipe that does not sacrifice taste.  One thing I must note is that wheat berry blender pancakes need to be blended very well or you can get bits of whole wheat in your pancake.  Be patient with the blender, and soaking overnight in buttermilk is well worth it, but this is a super simple recipe, and if you get an urge for pancakes you can just throw it all in the blender for a really quick meal.

Making Wheat Berry Pancakes in a Blender:

Ingredients:

  • 1 Cup Milk (translation for powdered milk is 3 T. Milk and 1 C. Water)
  • 1 Cup Wheat Berries
  • 2 Eggs (2 T. powdered eggs 1/4 C. Water)
  • 2 tsp Baking Powder
  • 1-1/2 tsp Salt
  • 2 Tbs. Oil
  • 2 Tbs. Honey or Sugar

Procedure:

  1. Add the wheat and milk in the blender and pulse until the wheat turns to batter.
  2. Add the other ingredients and pulse for a couple minutes more.

This works because the blender is made to mix wet ingredients and so it works best with liquids.  After every couple pancakes pulse the batter for a second of two to keep everything mixed.

 

How to Make Homemade Cream of Wheat

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Homemade Cream of Wheat

 

Homemade Cream of Wheat
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Like all good preppers, I have a substantial store of wheat berries dutifully packed away in Mylar bags and nitrogen packed buckets.  However, its a lot easier to buy and pack wheat than it is to cook with it.

Because of this I have been purchasing wheat cookbooks and messing around trying to find recipes that work well with my lifestyle.  On of the very first workable recipes I found was this simple recipe for homemade cream of wheat.

This recipe uses a blender instead of a grinder so its easy.  Of course when SHTF I could set my grinder to course or use a mortar and pestle.

Best yet, using whole wheat berries is cheap verses the $5 a box of cream of wheat that lasts all of two bowls in the morning.

The recipe for Homemade Cream of Wheat is simple.

Ingredients

  • Wheat Berries (ration of 1 wheat / 2 water
  • Water
  • Salt to taste
  • Butter to taste

Procedure

  • Pulse the wheat in a blender until cracked and not powdered.
  • Boil twice as much water as you have cracked wheat. (salt and butter to taste)
  • Once it has thickened add milk, sugar, honey, nuts, berries, chocolate or anything else (My lovely bride prefers lots of cheddar cheese).
  • Cook until it has the texture and thickness you desire.
  • Put it in a bowl and enjoy.

Its a little nuttier than processed instant cream of wheat, and a lot darker.  I find it compares with oatmeal.

Its not my favorite breakfast food, but its a lot easier to store and loads cheaper than a sausage egg and cheese croissant sandwich….